of servants involves a considerable difficulty, on which I wish to consult you. You know and esteem Caplin, my valet de chambre, maître d'hôtel, &c., who was brought up in our house, and there expected to end his days. Since your departure, his talents and virtues have been increasingly developed, and I consider him much less on the footing of a servant than on that of a friend. Unfortunately, he only understands English, and will never learn a foreign language. He accompanied me, six years ago, in my journey to Paris, but he brought back to England all the ignorance and all the prejudices of a good patriot. At Lausanne he would cost me a good deal to keep, and, excepting personal service, would be of very little use. Nevertheless I would willingly bear that expense, were I not very sure that, if his attachment induced him to follow me, he would be tired to death in a country where every thing was strange and disagreeable to him. I must, therefore, part with a man whose zeal and fidelity I know, break off suddenly little habits that are connected with my daily and hourly comfort, and resolve to replace him by a new face, perhaps a bad character, or at any rate some Swiss adventurer picked up on the London pavements. You recollect one George, a Swiss, who formerly made, along with me, the tour through France and Italy? I think he is married and settled at Lausanne; if he is still alive, you may ask him to come here, to take me back into Switzerland; the company of a good former servant will not fail to alleviate the loss, and he may perhaps remain with me till we have chosen a young man of the country, skilful, modest, and well educated, to whom I could give an advantageous situation. Other servants, as housekeeper, footman, cook, &c. are engaged and changed without difficulty. An article much more important is our board; for, after all, we are not hermits enough to be contented with the vegetables and fruits of your garden, however excellent they may be; but I have scarcely any thing to add to the kindness of your proposals, which gave me much more pleasure than surprise. Were I quite destitute, instead of being ashamed of the favours of friendship, I would accept your offers in the same simple spirit in which they are made. But we are not yet reduced to that extremity, and you understand very well that the wreck of an English fortune would form a decent property in the Pays de Vaud; and, to tell you something more precise on this point, I could very well and without inconvenience spend five or six hundred louis.* You are acquainted with the sum total as well as with the details of household expense; suppose now a little table for two Epicurean philosophers, four, five, or six servants, friends pretty often, feasts pretty rarely, much enjoyment and little luxury, how much do you suppose will be the gross expense for a month and for a year? The division you have already made appears to me to be very reasonable; you shall lodge me and I will board you. To your calculation I shall add my personal expenditure, clothes, spending money, servants' wages, &c., and I shall then see in a very clear manner the total expense of my little establishment.

*The louis was of about the value of £1 sterling.

After having gone through so many minute details, the beloved reader doubtless imagines that my resolution of settling myself for some time on the banks of Lake Leman is perfectly fixed. Alas! nothing is farther from the truth; but I have yielded myself up to the delightful charm of reckoning, sounding, and feeling that happiness, all whose value I can perceive, which is within my reach, and which I shall perhaps yet have the stupidity to renounce. You are right in thinking, but you do not know how right you are, that my political career has been strewn rather with thorns than with roses. Well! what object or individual could repay me for the annoyances of business, and the shame of dependence? Fame? As a man of letters I already enjoy it, as an orator I shall never have it, and private soldiers' names are forgotten in victories as well as in defeats. Duty? In these blind combats, where the chiefs seek only for their own private emolument, the odds are that the subalterns will always do more harm than good. Personal attachment? Ministers are very seldom worthy of it; up to the present time Lord North has had no cause to complain of me, and if I retire from parliament, he will very easily get another silent member in my place, who will be quite as faithful as his old servant. I am perfectly convinced, both by reason and feeling, that no course will suit me so well as to live with you or near you at Lausanne; and if I obtain the place I am seeking for (commissioner of excise or customs), there will be five long mornings every week, that will remind me of the folly of my choice. You are, indeed, deceived as to the stability of these employments; they are almost the only ones that never experience ministerial revolutions. However, if this place should offer itself soon, I should not have the good sense and courage to refuse it. What other counsellors would I take but my heart and my reason? There are some most powerful and always listened to; prudence, false shame, all my friends, or professed friends, will cry out that I am a lost and ruined man, a fool who leaves his protectors, a misanthrope who exiles himself to the end of the world; and then such exaggerations about all that would be done in his favour, so surely, so promptly, so liberally! Lord Sheffield will vote to have me arrested and locked up; my two aunts and my motherin-law will deplore my leaving them for ever, &c. "What a trouble it is to take my night-cap," says the sage Fontenelle," when the only point is, whether to go to bed;" and how many night-caps must not I take, and take them all alone? for every body, friends, relations, and servants, will oppose my flight. Truly, these are obstacles but little to be dreaded, and while I describe them I find them growing fainter in my mind. Thanks to this long gossip, you know my mind as well as I do myself; that is to say, badly enough; but this uncertainty, which is very pleasant to me, will be very annoying to you. Your answer to this will not reach me till about the end of July, and in a week after, I promise a plain and decisive reply, either "I come," or "I stop." If I come, it will be about the middle of September; I shall eat the grapes off your vine on the

first days of October; and you will, meanwhile, have time enough to charge me with any commissions. Do not again say, “Sir, and dear friend;" the first is cold, the second is superfluous.

CLIII.-MR. GIBBON TO MR. DEYVERDUN.

Hampton Court, July 1st, 1783.

After having made up my mind, honour and, what is still better, friendship, forbid me to leave you a moment in uncertainty. I come. I give you my word for it, and, as I am very glad to strengthen myself by a new bond, I pray you very seriously not to release me from it. The possession of me will not, doubtless, be so valuable as that of Julia, but you will be more inexorable than St. Preux. My only feeling now, is that of a lively impatience for our union. But the month of October is still far distant; ninety-two days; and we shall have plenty of time to give and receive all the elucidations we may want. After mature consideration, I give up the Swiss George's journey, which appears to me uncertain, expensive, and difficult. After all, my valet and my library are the two most troublesome articles. If I did not restrain my pen, I could easily fill a sheet; but I must not pass from silence to an inexhaustible chatter. Only if I knew the Comte de Cagliostro, that extraordinary man, &c. Do you understand Latin? Yes, no doubt; but act as though I did not understand it. When shall you return to Lausanne yourself? I think you will there find a lovely little creature, but a rather wicked one, named Lady Elizabeth Foster; speak to her about me, but do it with discretion; she has correspondences in every place. Vale.

CLIV. MR. DEYVERDUN TO MR. GIBBON.

"Sir"

Truly now I am a little puzzled; I must neither call you nor "Friend." Well! you must know that, having set out on Saturday from Strasburg, while I came here, your second letter went there; and so I received your third on Sunday, and your second yesterday. The mention you made in the third of the Swiss George, of whom I could find nothing said in the first, gave me to understand that there was a second, and I thought I had better wait the arrival of another courier, as the third did not require any

answer.

As for your word of honour, allow me again to release you from it, and so even up to the last day; I know very well that a contrary proceeding would suit you, but certainly it would not suit me at all. This is, as you say, a sort of marriage, and do you think that, notwithstanding the most solemn engagements, I would not reconduct to her own house, from the very foot of the altar, the most amiable woman who should testify regret at the transaction? I shall never be comfortable if I see you at last discontented, and in the mind to reproach me. It is for you to take any steps you deem necessary on your side, which may strengthen your resolution; for

myself, I shall make no essential difference till I have received one more letter from you. After this little preamble, we will talk as if the business was decided upon; and let us go over your letter again. All that you say about large and small towns, is very true, and nothing can be more just or appropriate than your comparison of straits and the open sea; but, after all," As you make your bed, so you must lie," said Sancho Panza of pleasant memory, and who is better able to make his bed to his own liking than a stranger, who, having no duties, either of occupation or consanguinity to fulfil, can live entirely isolated, without any one's having a right to find fault with it? I myself, though a burgess and a citizen of the town, am almost entirely free. In summer, for example, I hate to shut myself in hot rooms to make one of a party. Well! I was a little persecuted the first year; now they leave me in peace. There will, undoubtedly, be some alteration in your manner of living, but it appears to me that it will be easy to accommodate yourself to it. Dinners, particularly to ladies, are very rare; suppers not large; they are more for the sake of being together than for eating, and many persons do not sit down. I think that, after every allowance and deduction, you will have more time in your study than at London. There is little going out during the morning, and when our mutual friends come to my house and ask for I shall "He is not idle like you fellows, he is at work in his study," and they will observe a respectful silence.

you,

say,

As for public libraries, your idea could not, I think, be realised for a reader, or even for an ordinary writer; but a man who sustains a part in the republic of letters, a man loved and had in reputation, will find, I should imagine, many facilities; moreover, I have good friends at Berne, and I will obtain some information on this point.

Let us pass on to our living. If I were at Lausanne this particular might be more certain and precise, I could look over my papers and reckon I have a most wretched memory. At a guess, I should say it might be from 20 to 30 louis a month, more or less, you will of course perceive, according to its quality, and the number of guests. Let me know in your next how much yours costs.

of

I can very well understand all the "night-caps." There are no great changes made without trouble or even without regret; you will, doubtless, sometimes experience this. For instance, if your dining and drawing rooms are more cheerful, you will miss the dust your library. As for that part which consists in persuasions, at best but useless talk, the best way would be, I think, to disguise your grand operations, and to speak only of a tour, of a visit to me for six months, more or less. You would do well, I think, to go to my friend Louis Teissier; he is a good, honest man, who is attached to me and loves our country; he will zealously give you plenty of good advice, and will keep your secret.

You will sometimes have a poet on your table-yes, sir, a poet; -we have one at last. Get an octavo volume, Poësies Helvetiennes, imprimées l'année passée chez Mouser, à Lausanne. You

will find, among others, in "the epistle to the gardener of the grot," your friend and your park. All the prose is your humble servant's, who hopes it will find favour in your sight.

The Comte de Cagliostro has taken up his abode at London. Nobody knows who he is, or where he gets his money from; he exercises his medical talents gratis, and has performed some wonderful cures; but in other respects he is the strangest composition. I have left off his medicines, for they heated me ;-besides, the man, in him, disgusted me with the physician. I am come back to Basle with my friend. Adieu. Write to me again as soon as you possibly can.

CLV.-EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

July 10th, 1783.

You will read the following lines with more patience and attention than you would probably give to a hasty conference, perpetually interrupted by the opening of the door, and perhaps by the quickness of our own tempers. I neither expect nor desire an answer on a subject of extreme importance to myself, but which friendship alone can render interesting to you. We shall soon meet at Shef

field.

*

*

*

*

It is needless to repeat the reflections which we have sometimes debated together, and which I have often seriously weighed in my silent solitary walks. Notwithstanding your active and ardent spirit, you must allow that there is some perplexity in my present situation, and that my future prospects are distant and cloudy. I have lived too long in the world to entertain a very sanguine idea of the friendship or zeal of ministerial patrons; and we are all sensible how much the powers of patronage are reduced. * At the end of the parliament, or rather long before that time (for their lives are not worth a year's purchase), our ministers are kicked down stairs, and I am left their disinterested friend to fight through another opposition, and to expect the fruits of another revolution. But I will take a more favourable supposition, and conceive myself, in six months, firmly seated at the board of customs; before the end of the next six months, I should infallibly hang myself. Instead of regretting my disappointment, I rejoice in my escape; as I am satisfied that no salary could pay me for the irksomeness of attendance, and the drudgery of business so repugnant to my taste, (and I will dare to say) so unworthy of my character. Without looking forwards to the possibility, still more remote, of exchanging that laborious office for a smaller annuity, there is surely another plan, more reasonable, more simple, and more pleasant; a temporary retreat to a quiet and less expensive scene. In a four years' residence at Lausanne, I should live within my income, save, and even accumulate, my ready money; finish my history, an object of profit as well as fame, expect the contingencies of elderly lives, and return to England at the age of fifty, to form a lasting independent estab